Funny things only nurses get to see!

Let’s face it: If you’ve been in nursing long enough, you’ve seen some pretty strange stuff. Take a look at some of the odd encounters our readers have experienced, and share your own in the comments section below!

A nurse was doing a stroke assessment on an elderly patient. She asked her to smile, but the patient said that she just didn’t feel like smiling. Then the nurse said, “Well, show me your teeth.” The lady opened her mouth, took out her dentures and handed them to the dumbfounded nurse.

One elderly gentleman asked his nurse for some tape after putting in his hearing aids. The nurse watched as the patient began to put the tape over his ears. When asked why, the patient said, “It’s to keep them hearing aids from falling out!”

An elderly patient came out of his room during a code. With curiosity, he looked into the room at the coding patient. Deciding he didn’t want to bother anyone, he promptly urinated on the floor and wandered back to a different room. He then proceeded to climb into bed with another patient.

A nurse encountered a patient who refused to use the toilet in his room. He would urinate on the carpet or in the trash can. The nurses thought he was confused. One night, the nurse was giving him a bath, and he needed to use the toilet. He refused to sit on the seat, and when she asked why, he replied, “Because the water is cold and it freezes my balls!” When the nurse looked, he did have enormous testicles. Turns out, he wasn’t crazy after all.

A nurse came in for her shift and saw a patient she had a great relationship with. She said, “What’s new, Tom?” He held his hand over his head and said, “Everything under this point isn’t new at all!”

In the middle of July, a nurse was feeding a patient when another patient came by on her wheelchair. She turned into a room that wasn’t hers and began singing “Jingle Bells.” The nurse jumped up and hurriedly pulled the confused woman out of the crowded room. The patient replied, “I guess they didn’t like it!”

One nurse came in to start her morning shift and was surprised to see an elderly resident already up and in her chair. The nurse bent down to say hello to the lady, and she replied, “Hey, I know you. You’re my friend.” The nurse said, “That’s right. I’m your friend.” She replied, “Then get me the hell out of this place!”

Lynda Lampert is a registered nurse and a certified third shift worker. She has worked with many different patient populations, including post-op open heart, post-op gastric bypass, active chest pain, congestive heart failure, poorly controlled diabetics and telemetry 'wonders'. She now focuses all of her effort on educating the populace -- both the nursing world and the normal folk -- through her web writing. She hopes one day to publish another romance novel, travel to England and become a web rock star. She feels she is on her way . . . mostly. You can learn more about Lynda and her work at lyndalampert.com. By Lynda Lampert

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21 Responses to Funny things only nurses get to see!

GalaxyDuster

I once was getting a patient ready for chemo, and took his vital signs as usual. His blood pressure was about 180/120, and he looked a little shaky. I said, “Did you have anything to eat yet today?” He said, “Yeah, about six cups of coffee.” :-X

I once recently asked a female patient her pain level. One for no pain and Ten for pain really bad, you know as bad a childbirth. The patient calmly told me she was a nun so she would not know what childbirth was like. I could feel my face turning red.

I was helping with activities on the dementia unit when a patient holding a doll looked at me and said, “I’ve cared for this baby all day. I’ve fed her and changed her diaper and fed her, and come to find out, it’s a false one!”

So I work in assisted living and memory care and one time I was going into a residents (she isn’t a memory care res. in fact, she is one of the most with it residents we have) room after she paged and asked her what she needed help with. She told me that she wanted me to strip her bed and wash her sheets, I was slightly confused as she is continent and hadn’t been in bed since 6 that morning. I was even more confused when I looked at the schedule and saw that housekeeping had washed her sheets that day. I asked her why and she told me that the laundry soap dried out her skin…this was odd since we’ve been using that laundry soap all the time she had lived here and she had never c/o about it before. Well I did what she asked. The next day I was taking her to dinner and she told me that there was a piece of gauze that had fallen out of the trash can and she couldn’t leave her room because that piece of gauze would explode and give her asthma. The next time I went in their she said that there was a gas leak in there, I couldn’t smell any gas, the director couldn’t smell any, maintanince checked the gas lines and there was no leaking gas, but she insisted their was and demanded a different room. Seeing as we are usually packed full there wasn’t any other available room so she proceeded to tell all her neighbors we were trying to kill her which turned everyone else down that hall against us. Then after making more odd complaints, each one more and more bizarre, she told us that her housekeeping lady brought in a machine gun and was shooting her and the bullets barely missed her, she was even able to show us where the bullets had hit in the wall. Needless to say we got a UA on her and yep, sure enough, she had a UTI

Had a pt say that she would like a bandage. When I asked why, she said someone stole her nipple. Couple weeks later, she said that she needs to go into surgery. Someone had put an extra toe on each foot and she wanted them removed. I had to count her toes for her. She thought I was deceiving her when I got to 5 on each foot and threatened to sue.

I had a lovely little Irish lady who was so polite and friendly and wouldn’t say boo to a goose. She had had her op but her Co2 was creeping up and wasn’t tolerating her Cpap mask. She started getting more and more pleasantly confused until midnight came and she turned into a Gremlin! The Drs decided they need to intubate her and anaesthetist ask me if she had dentures in. I politely ask her if she wore dentures and she turned round gave me a stare that would stop a hardened criminal in their track and said with such venom in her tone ‘that’s none of your f#*king business!!’

I tried so hard not to laugh that this pleasant little old lady had come out with strong language. She got extubated a few days later andneedlessly apologised to everyone.

When going to change a male dementia patients brief, he smiled at me, looked at my hall partner and gave one of those mischievous grins and turned to me and said ” what until she sees how big it is”. Needless to say, professional courteously of not laughing went out the window and paper, rocks, scissors ensued to see who undid the brief!

I was assisting an elderly patient into position for a routine chest xray and she was taking more than a passing interest in the machine. Eventually she turned to me and said “that’s a big teapot darling.”

I am into home health, and I had a patient with dementia. On one visit, she told me that the house she was in wasn’t her house. I know it was her house through her records (she owns it) . She told me her aide had done a great job duplicating her house and tried to convince her to live in that duplicate house.

My favorite patient so far… She was our pleasantly confused dementia patient who dressed in rainbow framed $1 sunglasses, a trench coat, and a matching hat and scarf (We called her “Ms. Elton John”). She wore these all night and walked around the unit with her sitter singing Beyonce and Christmas carols. After getting off night shift, during our pre-report meeting, charge nurse said, “Hey, ‘Ms. Elton John’ has been asleep since midnight so no one go into that room until after she wakes up.” Not even a second later she opened her door!

I have a very confused and hard of hearing patient. She took a bottle of powder and spread it all over her floor. I was standing out in the hallway and the cna went into the room and asked her why she did that mess. She said she didn’t know. The cna then stated ,”Now I have to clean it up before someone falls!” The patient responds “saturday night dance party?” the cna says,’Yes, Olga, Saturday night dance party.”

The state police called me one night and asked me to go over to the assisted living apartments because an elderly man had just called them to report that alligators are swimming all over his floor. Mind you we’re in Delaware. I laughed and said ok. His response was ,”If you go over there and find out there are really alligators in his room please call us back because we want to see this.” I said “oh and you want ME to go over there to the room full of alligators.” They laughed.lol

One time I was working the night shift and a homeless woman came to our door. She said she had to wait for the bus. There were no busses running and it was cold out. She was very confused so we called the police.When the cops came they recognized her right away and knew she was a diabetic and needed to take her meds.The cop was trying to talk her into going with him so he can get her some help.She told him she would only go with him if he danced the jig with her.lol God Bless New Castle County police officers. This officer danced the jig!! He turned to us and said “Don’t you dare tell anybody I did that.” Too bad we didn’t have youtube or facebook back then

The latter part of my career in nursing, I worked in the field of Corrections. In order for an inmate to be seen by the doctor, they would have to submit a sick call slip with a brief explanation for wanting to be seen. I received the following sick call slip. :”I need to be seen for assist on my nuts!”

My favorite all time line from Geriatrics resident is.” I’m not as young as I once was when I was 97.” Shouted out by a very hard hearing gentleman with no teeth sitting in a Geri-chair, trying to impress our new very attractive elderly female resident.

An elderly man came in by ambulance with his wife, who said that he’d had a stroke and couldn’t speak. The doctor came in and asked the gentlemen what was wrong. The man clearly replied” she wouldn’t have sex with me last night, and so I am never talking to her again”. The wife said “that’s right, no sex, ever again”…an ambulance was called to take them back home. Still laughing about it.

We have a resident that wears her wig side ways. Refuses to accept help. Or change her clothes. She’s propelling her self in w/c down the hall. Cna says “Please change your clothes.” She said ” Please kiss my ass” as she rolls passed the cna!!

A new resident somehow took off the wanderguard. Gathered some clothes found some keys and her purse. Asked a new CNA to assist her outside since she was washing her sons clothes. As they headed out unit manager said under her breath she was admitted today. She nearly escaped!